Energy

What can you do with a plasma ball? We get this question a lot! Check out these simple, cool demos using everyday lab items like fluorescent lamps, LEDs, neon gas tubes, and even your own body! You’ll be amazed at how easy and fun teaching and learning about electrostatics can be.

It was 8:45 AM in Florence and I was waiting for one of the highlights of my 2012 Italian family vacation the chance to see the original creations for one of the greatest minds of the 17th century, Galileo. Take a tour of the Galileo Museum with me and see the classic Physics demos as they were in the 1600's.

Think back to when you were a little kid playing one of your most enjoyable family games on Saturday night. It involved rolling a die and moving around a game board, all while building a complex “mousetrap”, hoping that you wouldn’t get caught in its devious shenanigans or secretly wishing that its numerous “Energy Transfers” would fail to work!

Whether we realize it or not, all velocity/speed measurements are made relative to some other object. When your car's speedometer reads 55 mph, the assumption is that the change in position of the car compared to the stationary ground is 55 miles every hour. However, not all velocity/speed measurements are made relative to a stationary object. The Constant Velocity cars allow students to experimentally investigate relative speeds as the cars with different speeds move in the same and in opposite directions.

Engaging students, grabbing their attention; any teacher would agree that's the key to getting students excited about science, and maybe even remembering a little of what they learned. In this issue of CoolStuff we connect complete cool, with an important lesson on energy and motion. Extreme sports push the limits of what is humanly possible, but really big stunts take more than athleticism and guts. Really big stunts require science!

One of the first science toys I ever owned was a water rocket. Essentially a plastic container with fins, the rocket is prepared for flight by partially filling it with water and pressurized air. When released, the rocket’s contents exit a small hole at the base of the rocket in one direction, pushing the rocket ahead with amazing speed in the opposite direction. A case of action-reaction, pure and simple.

Thermodynamics and the thermal properties of matter are inextricably linked to daily living. Most everyone has an innate sense of hot and cold, checks the temperature outdoors before deciding what to wear, knows that spilled water will eventually evaporate and not to expect a snow storm on a hot July day.

A mystery to the ancients and a marvel to Einstein, magnetism is inextricably linked to the operation of motors and generators, the functioning of radio, television and computers, and our understanding of the universe. From the Greeks, who found that certain stones would attract pieces of iron, to Einstein who, as a child, was captivated by the mysterious properties of magnets, humankind's fascination with magnetism has never abated.

Global warming is a hot topic. Scientists tell us that our hunger for energy may be heating up the planet, but we remain unconvinced. We're loath to accept the fact that our desire for mobility, is to a large extent, fueling the warming. Most of us are taken aback when we learn that an average car produces six tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide annually. With over two hundred million vehicles on our nation’s highways, the amount of CO2 pumped into our atmosphere each year is staggering. While the automobile is certainly not the only source of man-made CO2, it definitely is a major contributor. It’s no wonder that both scientists and senators are anxious to find an emission-free vehicle.

In this issue of CoolStuff, I would like to expand on the Concept Development stage of the Learning Cycle. From the last issue of CoolStuff, many of you know the Learning Cycle is an approach to science instruction developed by Atkin and Karplus in 1962.